Robot Pillows
My son celebrated his first birthday almost two weeks ago! I had the theme to his party set pretty soon after he was born! (Thank you Target for having the Paul Frank space theme on clearance and for me to get all the tableware for about $5!) And in going with the theme of his nursery of retro robots, I figured the space theme would be perfect! Originally I had wanted to make "ugly-doll" type robot stuffies, but because of my wrist pain, I ended up going with regular pillows with iron on robots! Thanks to my new Silhouette machine, the robots were a breeze, and I had several varieties for the kids to choose from. I used muslin as the solid front and a gray fleece for the back. I had several different solid scraps in green, yellow, pink, and black, so all the kids had a chance to pick their favorite colors- none of the kids left unhappy!
One of the things I decided to do for my son's party was a birthday banner! I had seen a ton of ideas on Pinterest and loved the idea of the monthly photo banner! (Especially because since birth, I have taken a weekly picture of him, and it still amazes me how quickly he's grown!) My pennant had 13 pictures, rather than the traditional 12 because I included his birth-day!
And 2012 has begun…
i had high hopes for getting lots of new projects started in the upcoming year and adding a lot of new items into the shop! unfortunately since Oct. 2011, i've developed such severe tendonitis-in BOTH my wrists-that a lot of these projects have gone on hold, and sewing has slowed down significantly on my part! 
i'm able to get about an hour of work done everyday, and that's about as much as i can do without triggering too much pain in my wrists where i won't be paying for it the rest of the day!
for the time being, i am not going to be taking custom orders! (however, you can always shoot me an email and i will give you a timeline on when i could have it done. in the past i've always tried my best to have orders completed within a week to ten days, however i cannot guarantee that right now). right now i'm trying my best to get some accessories and smaller items into the shop, and have a few other smaller items planned that i've been making using my new Silhouette machine! (thanks hubby for my awesome Christmas present!)
and...since i haven't posted any projects lately, thought i'd share some of the items i made for the holidays, either as orders or gifts!
Ornaments
i had been wanting to make some cute handmade ornaments with B this year and kept seeing some cute ones on Pinterest. however, my idea of doing a glittered first Christmas handprint quickly went out the window- has anyone ever tried taking a 10 month old's handprint and have it coming out looking like an actual hand?!! (and not to sidetrack too much, but back in my days of working in childcare, we did handprints and foot prints with babies ALL the time! i must be getting rusty because i don't ever remember it being THAT hard, or maybe it was because we had a "production" line and had at least two other teachers on hand to get the process moving quickly!! or it was because we only used inkpads and there was no chance of it smearing so much on paper? in any event, a painted handprint was out the window!!)
so....the idea quickly moved on to just a footprint! which actually worked out because i haven't done his footprint in a while (so much for my baby scrapbook and doing a footprint every 3 months! whoopsies! i definitely dropped the ball on that one too!)
glitter ornaments are fun and easy! it adds a bit of bling to your tree, and they are definitely cheap to make! which makes it even more fun when gifting!
i found several tutorials online and basically all you need is glass ornaments, glitter, and some some form of glitter adhesive (some tutorials said you can use floor wax, such as Pledge, but i didn't have any and found Glitter-it at the craft store and just used that!)
just coat the inside of the ornament with whatever form of adhesive you are using, let it hang upside down for a bit to get the remaining liquid out, and then pour the glitter inside, shaking out the excess! for the hand/footprint, just use acrylic paint (i found that actually painting the hand and foot is a LOT easier than dipping the hand or foot into the paint), and, voila- done!
since i had leftover ornaments i decided to do the handprint version with my 3 year old niece for her tree. we painted three of her fingers, and i drew hats and scarves on the "snowmen."
i love how easy these were to make, and with the leftover bulbs, i'll definitely be ready for next years ornament!
Thanksgiving Sale
hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving! in case you hadn't already seen on my Twitter or Facebook feed, i'm having a Thanksgiving sale in my shop! for the remainder of the year, shipping fees have been waived (that's a savings of between $3-10!) also, from now till Monday, November 28 (cyber Monday), using coupon code TURKEY10 will get you 10% off your total purchase! new inventory has been listed! as requested by some people, accessories for work- such as more laptop bags/sleeves, and also lanyards have been added in my shop!
AND in honor of Small Business Saturday any order placed in my Etsy Shop TODAY ONLY will receive a coupon code for future use of 15% off!!
(please note that deals are only valid on ready-to-ship items, not custom orders!)
HAPPY SHOPPING! 
Holiday Open House
for those local to Northern Va, just wanted to let you know that i will be having a Crafty Natalie/Jewel Kade open house Nov. 13! if you would like details, please email me or leave a comment on this post!
since i have a handful of shows lined up, i will not be taking custom orders after Nov. 1 to gear up for these shows in addition to being able to enjoy the holidays (especially with it being the first one with our son!!) so, please note this date if you are interested in placing a custom order for the holidays!
and in case you didn't know what Jewel Kade was, it's a new jewelery line that includes fun chains and charms that are easily interchangeable!
also another update! i will be having a small table of handmade dog collars by My Dog Flair available at the open house as well!
Shop Crafty Natalie at EarthWorks!
i finally took the plunge and found a shop that was willing to carry some of my items! if you are local to Northern Va, you can purchase Crafty Natalie items at EarthWorks! located in Leesburg, VA, EarthWorks is a cute little gift shop that features ALL LOCAL artisans! wonderful concept, huh? it's a truly unique store that carries jewelry, bath and body products, hand crocheted blankets and scarves, wonderful art, woodwork, and so much more! every month i'll re-stock with new items, but for right now, there are several handbags and baby gift sets! (i recently started buying more organic cotton prints and thought this would be a fun thing to sell in the shop- baby gifts made from organic cotton!)
with the holiday season coming upon us, if you haven't been to EarthWorks, i'd definitely recommend it for gifts!
Easy Peasy Halloween Shirt
every year i always think about buying a cheapie themed shirt for the any of the holidays (i always figure i'd grab it close to or after the holiday has passed to get a great deal on it, and in doing so, i typically forget all about it!) i was at Joann Fabrics a few weeks back and saw a cute rhinestone owl decal that was on sale! (sad thing is if i had waited another week, i could've gotten it at an even better deal!) i also had several long sleeve shirts on hand that were brand new (typically i layer short sleeves in the fall/winter, so the abundance i had that still had tags on them from when they were on clearance last season at Target, really made me enjoy making this shirt even more!)
this shirt ended up costing me only $7 to make! (i had gotten the long-sleeve on clearance for $4, and the decal on sale for $3!) i love it not only because i love owls, but also because it's not entirely Halloween themed and can still wear it for all of fall!
B’s Fall Jacket
fall kind've sprung up on us quick (although, the last few days have been close to 80, so i think mother nature can't decide which season she wants to be in!)
finding a jacket for a baby is a lot harder than i would've ever guessed! everything is too big and bulky! (the thought of even trying to get B into a heavy winter coat AND then into a car seat wears me out and it hardly seems worth getting out of the house for! 
) i finally remembered the Baby-in-the-Hood Jacket from Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings book!
i found a gray houndstooth fabric at Joann Fabrics for only $5/yd and then used a yellow Kona cotton for the interior. i decided to just make it two colors (and it was more so because i wanted to keep it simple; but may decide to make B another one with a few mixed prints-maybe something lighter for the spring!) the pattern and directions were really easy to follow, and i ended up using a soft flannel to line the interior of the jacket to make it warm without being to bulky! (the exterior has a traditional fusible interfacing attached to it, while the interior has the flannel attached to it).
i think B likes his jacket! he put it on without a fuss, and even let me put the hood on him! he can sit in his carseat with it on without looking like a sardine squished in a can, and i definitely think this will keep him warm, possibly even when it's snowing out!
(and on a totally unrelated note, can you believe my little guys almost 9 months!!)
Mary Jo’s Cloth Store
last weekend i went to Charlotte, NC to visit one of my good friends. it ended up being a crafting weekend, as i was mostly helping her with making some dog collars for her to sell at a dog rescue event. before i had left for North Carolina, i searched for quilt shops nearby and one of the places that kept popping up was Mary Jo's Cloth Store. apparently it was a MUST GO TO store! it ended up being about a 45 min drive away from where i was staying, but lemme tell you, IT WAS WORTH IT!! the shop was HUGE! like a giant warehouse. as soon as you walk in you grab a cutting slip. there are no carts (which concerned me, because honestly, how do you expect us to carry fabric bolts around?!) but that wasn't even a problem!! there are cutting tables EVERYWHERE! you can just grab a few bolts, stand in line, then go back and grab some more!! there were no lines at the tables, everyone was extremely friendly and quite honestly i was overwhelmed by the amount of fabrics and notions all around!! there was a good deal of Michael Miller fabrics, Timeless Treasures, Robert Kaufman, and everything was reasonably priced!! there was a GREAT selection of minky and plush fabrics (honestly, colors i hadn't seen before and sooooo wanted to scoop up, but in the end couldn't decide which colors to choose that i ended up walking away!! i'm sure i will regret this later, but for right now i didn't have any orders that needed any of this and the obvious factor of not much storage space at home was a big factor and why i just had to walk away, but it certainly wasn't easy!!)
there was an entire section of home decorator fabrics as well. a ton of stuff that i'd actually seen on fabric.com, but never anywhere else! elastics and ribbons were abundant, as well as many other "costume" type fabrics/accessories. (wish i had known of some fun halloween costumes because this certainly would've been the place to stock up on some fun stuff to make later!)
the entire store left me overwhelmed! i felt like a kid in a candy store and as crazy as it sounds, i would definitely make a trip back to NC JUST to visit this store again! (well, that and of course to visit my friends! )
Mary Jo's Cloth Store
(this picture is just a small glimpse of what the store had to offer! this was taken when i was standing at the cutting table; i tried getting as much of the store as i possibly could, but it just wasn't possible! just imagine this times like 10!!)
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